


Summer Solstice, 1452

by Garonne



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, M/M, Middle Ages, POV Outsider, POV Quynh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: Quynh and Andromache keep an appointment with Nicolo and Yusuf.Fluff set during some downtime between missions.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 20
Kudos: 183





	Summer Solstice, 1452

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something cheerful from the time before Quynh is lost. Andy must have been happy once, right? *g*

It is the longest day of the year, and the sun is still high in the sky as Quynh rides up into the mountains, letting her mare pick her way carefully along the steep, winding deerpath. They are high above the deep-cut valley carved by the river the Bashkirs call Yayiq, Andromache a few yards behind Quynh.

The trail curves sharply round a small thicket of birch trees, and now Quynh can see a man standing higher up the mountainside, at the point where the trail disappears into the thick, densely growing oak forest that covers the mountain slopes. It is Nicolo, with Yusuf, of course, just behind him. Quynh has never seen one without the other.

She and Andromache soon reach them and slide down from their horses to embrace the two men.

"We've been here two weeks already," Yusuf announces. "We were starting to wonder if you were lost."

It is almost a decade since they had agreed to meet here, at the summer solstice ten years later.

Andromache snorts with laughter. "It's not our fault if you cannot read the passage of time in the skies."

Nicolo and Yusuf lead them deeper into the forest, to a clearing where the two men have evidently been camping, their blankets and belongings stowed near the raked-over ashes of the previous night's fire.

Quynh casts a quick glance around the clearing. They have chosen well: she can hear the babble of a stream somewhere nearby, and there will be plenty to eat in the forest. And they have already built an enclosure for the horses, a minimal protection against the bears and wolves that prowl these mountains at night. They take better care of their horses than themselves. After all, a horse is not immortal.

Andromache sees to their own horses while Quynh unpacks the fresh supplies they have brought from the last settlement they passed through, several days earlier: salt, peppercorns, black tea, honey, a gourd of camel's milk.

"How was Sukhothai?" Nicolo asks.

"Straightforward. How was Wallachia?"

Nicolo and Yusuf exchange wry glances.

"Successful," Yusuf says. "Eventually."

They will have stories to exchange over the campfire. For the moment, Quynh is hungry and thirsty. She leaves Nicolo and Yusuf discussing what to eat and goes to the stream, to drink her fill and fetch water for the horses. When she returns they are both kneeling by the campsite, Nicolo skinning a hare and Yusuf building up the fire. They both laugh at something Yusuf has said, and Nicolo leans across to brush Yusuf's lips with his.

Quynh feels the old spark of jealousy. Those two have never been alone. They have never known loneliness and despair. Then she hears Andromache behind her, just a rustle in the grass, and Andromache's hand is on her arm, her lips brushing Quynh's hair.

Andromache has never been particularly demonstrative, even when they lie together, but it's the little gestures like this that melt Quynh's heart every time. Quynh turns to kiss Andromache on the lips, earning herself a soft laugh.

They eat around the fire, the four of them, as so many times before.

"So," Yusuf says, after they've filled each other in on the last decade. "Where to next?"

"We were thinking we might stay here a little while," Andromache says. "A few months, until the weather turns."

Nicolo and Yusuf glance at each other, a moment of wordless communication, and then Nicolo turns back to the two women, nodding. "All right. Why not?"

Quynh, too, thought the concept appealing when Andromache first proposed it. A place to rest, remote from civilization. A place to be with Andromache, to kiss in the sunlight, to lie under the stars, to swim in the stream, to spend the afternoons sparring in the clearing, or hunting in the forest.

There will be time enough for work later. Andromache already has something in mind, Quynh knows.

It has always been Andromache who finds their missions. "We can do some good," she always says.

It was she who showed Quynh that their immortality could mean something, could be useful for something, when Quynh had given up on the will to live and despaired because she could not die.

"Now that we are no longer alone," Andromache had said when they first found each other. "Imagine what we can do."

She had been alone for far longer than Quynh had, millennia longer. Quynh's heart aches, a sharp unbearable pain, just to think of it. If it had been her, she would have given up on life long ago, but Andromache did not do so, and now she has Quynh.

That evening they lie by the campfire, Quynh pressed against Andromache's shoulder, listening to Nicolo tell them about a wolf pack they ran into a few days earlier, Yusuf breaking in occasionally with an addition or a correction. 

"We ended up spending two days in a tree," Nicolo finishes. "It seemed a pity to slaughter the whole pack just for following their instincts."

"Also, wolf is not good eating," Yusuf puts in.

Andromache lets out a short bark of a laugh. "You're too picky."

Nicolo and Yusuf can survive anywhere--have lived in the desert, the mountains, the steppes in winter--but they are originally town dwellers. They grew up between four walls and under a roof.

They are so young, Quynh thinks. They have not known a time when there were few or no towns, when the world was millennia younger.

Yusuf gets up to fetch more wood for the fire from the stack they have built nearby. Nicolo's gaze follows the movement, a smile on his face, then he says, "We would like to return to the Maghreb next. It is more than a century since Yusuf has been there."

Andromache nods. "As it happens, I had something in mind." 

"Where exactly?" Yusuf asks as he sits back down, slipping into place beside Nicolo. 

"Tunis. I don't have the details, but I have a contact in Damascus who put me onto the idea. Quynh and I will come with you as far as there. But for now, we rest."

It is a balmy summer evening, calm and dry, but with a chill in the air at this altitude that makes Quynh glad of the fire.

She turns her head to look at Andromache, who has let her hair fall loose around her shoulders, framing her face. In the glow of the firelight, the sharp clean lines of her features seem fierce as in battle.

 _The two of us, always,_ Quynh thinks, heart overflowing.

It is the longest day of the year, but eventually the sun sets. Nicolo has long since fallen silent, and only the crackling of the fire breaks the silence.

Quynh has been dozing, her head on Andromache's shoulder. She jerks awake when an over-green branch in the fire cracks and spits out embers, and finds Andromache giving her an amused look.

"Come on, time to sleep," she says quietly.

Yusuf and Nicolo have already spread out their blankets and are lying curled up together, Nicolo nestled under Yusuf's arm.

Andromache gets up to bank the fire for the night, and Quynh stretches, stiff from the way she had been sitting. She retreats with Andromache a little way back from the fireside, where they unroll their bedding and lie down together.

"Good night, dear heart," she says against Andromache's lips, and feels the answering smile. She lets her eyes drift closed and falls asleep with Andromache's arms around her.

**Author's Note:**

> They are in the Urals, by the way, close to the source of the Ural river, in modern-day Bashkortostan.


End file.
